


Solstice Our Way

by linguafranka



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Entrapta PoV, Friendship, Gen, Holidays, Neurodiversity, Parent Death, Past Child Abuse, Science Experiments, Sensory Overload, Super pal trio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 00:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17131169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linguafranka/pseuds/linguafranka
Summary: Entrapta is invited to a celebration at Scorpia's family home. It has a dress code. Entrapta owns nothing but 10 identical outfits for a reason.





	Solstice Our Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lorata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorata/gifts).



_Click_. "Horde Chief Engineer Log, day 112--113? No, 112. A cherub-resembling creature seemingly with audio recording capabilities instead of a larynx has delivered an invitation to my lab. Black, silver gilding, dark red ink similar in hue to fresh blood. To stimulate fear in receiver? Lord Hordak's voice emitted from motionless cherub more likely to evoke fear response. Hm."

  
She held the card up to the light with the front strand of her right pigtail, flipping her face shield up with her left hand. The bright workshop lights glinted off the silver filigree in the corner. Curiously, she pinched the paper with another lock of hair and pulled.

  
"Cardstock resists tearing, expensive to produce. Waste of resources. Show of power? 'Invitation' suggests request that receiver participate in social gathering, at odds with delivery by overlord's personal minion with recorded command to attend. Audio ephemeral, only invitation remains, no proof of coercion. Predictable tactics. Habit? Why employ them?"

  
"You could read the card and find out," a voice drawled from the laboratory door.

  
"Catra!" She tossed the card aside and jogged over with a grin. "My research on the First Ones' long-distance communications array you brought me has progressed! It's absolutely ingenious! By dividing a resonant miniscule grain into halves and placing one half into each device, the First Ones enabled instant communication without the need to broadcast--"

  
Catra's fingers across her mouth stopped the flow of words just as she was about to spin around in glee. The thin fur tickled her nose; she leaned back, scratched her nose, then leaned back into Catra's hand. Her friend blinked in confusion. People did that a lot around Entrapta.

  
"SOLSTICE FESTIVAL!" called out Scorpia, banging the door open so hard it ricocheted off the wall for the third time this week. Entrapta silently congratulated herself for the foresight to remove the shelves from that wall. "Hot drinks, moongazing, dancing through the night and enough cinnamon-flavored food that you feel like you're gonna die!" Somewhat concerningly, the huge grin never left Scorpia's face.

  
Catra’s nose wrinkled at the word ‘cinnamon.’ Interesting—Entrapta was neutral on the spice.

 

"Yeah, Entrapta just got an invitation, too," Catra said, pointing with her thumb at the floor by her workbench.

  
"Uh, yeah! It's hosted by my grandparents every year. There's no way I was gonna let my besties miss out!"

  
Entrapta reconsidered the card, scurrying over on the tips of her pigtails to swipe it up and into her gloves. Ah, there near the bottom: _Location - Garnet Palace, Grand Atrium_. Next to it, she now saw, someone (presumably Scorpia) had drawn a happy-faced stick figure waving hello.  Above that, however-- "Dress code: formal attire only," she read out in the flat tone of this-doesn't-interest-me.

  
"Well yeah," Scorpia chirped, slinging an arm around Catra, whose shoulders rose as high as her chin before dropping along with her ears. "They're not super snooty, though; anything you've got should be fine."

  
Suddenly too tired to explain it in words, Entrapta marched over to the bedroom side of her lab and threw open her closet door with her hair.

  
Catra and Scorpia stared. "...Wow, that's—that’s a lot of one outfit," Scorpia said at last in her characteristic baffled-but-nice voice.

  
Catra made a few false starts. "They're literally all--they have the same rip at the top! What in the..."

  
Entrapta sighed.

  
*

  
_"Enough with your whining, Entrapta! It's just lace! It won't kill you!"_

  
_Suffocating, she was suffocating. Scratching lace ends dug in, drew white lines down her skin that felt like fire and ice cracking her skin, digging it apart, prying her skin open, and her muscles twitched and shuddered and crawled to get away. She kicked and screamed until her throat was raw and there was no more breath in her chest and she couldn't suck any more in past the snot and spit that was everywhere in her mouth and throat and lungs and down the dress Mother had said was worth more than Entrapta._

  
_"Honestly, girl. You're being ridiculous."_

  
*

  
Click. _"Post rainstorm investigations, hour 2! The glitter tadpoles are undergoing a fascinating metamorphosis. In the course of hours they have grown hind legs powerful enough to propel them an average of three feet, and their secretions have given the puddles a lingering iridescence--"_

  
_"Entrapta!" Father's hand came down and snatched the recorder. Her observations had been so engrossing, she hadn't heard him approach. "What have you done!?"_

  
_She looked around herself in confusion. "I've been making observations about the lifecycle of the glitter frog--"_

  
_"To your dress!"_

  
_Oh. Entrapta looked down. The silk hem was soaked with mud to her knees. It was hardly something she'd feel through her thigh-high galoshes. Not that Father was likely to care. He grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her up, cursing under his breath as he dragged her into the castle. "The Queen of Plumeria will be here any minute! Why do you always ruin things when someone important is coming..."_

  
_Entrapta wondered when he would give her recorder back. If she would get her recorder back. The mud on her skirt glittered a rainbow of colors that deserved documentation._

  
_Father didn't agree._

  
*

  
_"Just look at all these split ends. Don't worry, dear--I'll take care of you."_

  
_The woman smiled and seemed nice, and she pulled a pair of shears out of a collection of blades and brought them together on Entrapta's hair. Mother stood in front of her, glaring, so Entrapta did not scream no matter how much she wanted to. She didn't run, she didn't protest, she didn't wimper, and she couldn't stop the tears sliding down her face. Her hair grew numb, each cold slice an analgesic._ It doesn't hurt _, she told herself silently as bits of her were pruned away._ It's just hair, it doesn't hurt.

  
_"There we are! Now, doesn't that feel better?"_

  
*

  
Click. _"Cosmetics social experiment, hour 37. Response to orange lipstick by peers favorable compared to yellow..."_

  
_Entrapta turned the corner and heard a burst of laughter from the classroom that had a distinctive mocking lilt. Curious, she loosened the screws on a nearby air vent with her hair and climbed in, scooching down bit by bit until she could peer out the classroom grate._

  
_"...Did you see the princess? Moons above, it was all I could do to keep it together."_

  
_"It was that ugly?"_

  
_"Worse. It looks like a carrot parrot threw up on her."_

  
_Laughter from several voices._

  
_"I don't know why she bothers! No amount of make-up could help with_ that _face..."_

  
_That was enough data, Entrapta decided. She continued quietly down the air duct until she reached the bathroom, ensured the stalls were empty, removed a portable welder from her hair and melted the door shut. Then she went to the sink and washed the cosmetics off with efficient strokes of a paper towel._

  
Click _. "Cosmetics social experiment, final log. Previously collected data suspect due to disingenuous peer responses..."_

  
*

  
_"What about a suit, Your Highness? Subverting gender expectations is quite in fashion this season."_

  
_She tried, she really tried. Having trousers was good, and there was no lace--Entrapta was very firm about that no matter how Mother rolled her eyes. But the fabric was stiff, and when she scratched the fabric wrinkled and the tailor shrieked and ran her hands all over, and the top button dug into her trachea and her breath was fast and shallow and whistling through her throat and she ripped the cravat from the assistant tailor's hands with her hair so suddenly the flimsy fabric tore down the middle._

  
_"I... am afraid we must ask you to leave our store."_

*

  
_Entrapta returned home after the funeral, put on her work clothes and looked over the robots she'd been working on for the past week. Mother's glasses, Father's moustache. They would be better, she decided. A lot of things would be better. She swept through the palace, gathering up clutter like family portraits and keepsakes to toss down the nearest garbage chute, marking out potential locations for secret tunnels and traps (her newest hobby!). She came upon her room._

  
_She stared at it for a long moment. Closet full of finery and school uniforms, silk sheets and a lace canopy on the bed, delicate tea set on a side table. None of it was really her, she decided. Once she activated Mother and Father, she could tell them to dispose of the room's contents._

  
_She turned around without having entered the room and skipped away._

  
*

  
"...And did you know that most tailors will give you a discount if you order 10 of the same outfit?"

  
"I did, actually! Force Captain uniforms!" said Scorpia, giving Entrapta's nearest pigtail a high-five.

  
"Wait, wait, wait," Catra cut in, waving her hands sharply in their faces. "Your parents lost it because you wouldn't wear pretty clothes?"

  
"I think it was about more than that," Entrapta said after considering for a bit, "but they never told me." She shrugged and went to check on an experiment.

  
Catra covered her face with her hands. Scorpia watched Entrapta carefully add four drops to a flask, and hummed "Ooh, pretty!" when the flask glowed.

 

Entrapta jotted down some notes and turned toward her friends. "So thank you for inviting me, and Lord Hordak for threatening me, but I can't attend the festival."

  
"But you went to Princess Prom," Catra protested.

  
"In that," replied Entrapta, pointing at outfit number 7 with her hair.

  
Scorpia walked over and took the outfit in her claws to inspect. "Oh, yeah! It's got that cologne you were wearing." She smiled, then frowned. "It's not really formal, though."

  
Entrapta nodded. That really was that. She tapped her finger against her lip, surveying her screens. The in-depth scan of the communications array was ready. Maybe Catra and Scorpia would listen to her explanations about it now?

  
"Screw this!" shouted Catra, claws unsheathed and running absently through Entrapta's hair. "Scorpia invited us to that party to have fun, and that's what we're going to do!"

  
She tilted her head to the side, giving Catra more access to her hair and peering at her face quizzically. "Social experiments run best when experimenters follow the subjects' social contracts."

  
"Yeah," said Scorpia, who Entrapta now recognized had had no idea what that meant. "And my Grandma Buthida's kinda strict about dress code."

  
"Then the two of us go and play nice." Catra bared her teeth in a nominal grin. "And we find a way to do things our way."

  
*

  
_Click_. "Horde Chief Engineer Log, day 125. Definitely 125. Commencing initial field test of in-ear communications array incorporating First Ones' resonant tech."

  
" _Ow! Can you turn that down? I can hear you breathing in my ear_."

  
" _Hee hee! It's like you're right here with us!_ "

  
"Initial results promising! Commencing data collection. Catra, what's five plus five?"

  
" _Seriously, we're about to greet Granny Buthida, turn it down._ "

  
"Hmm. Initial response inconclusive. What's five plus five?"

  
" _Ten!_ " chirped Scorpia, clearly proud to be a part of science.

  
The night progressed with Entrapta cheerfully crawling through the air vents of Garnet Palace, peppering her friends with questions and instructions to test the array's functionality, and observing social interactions without being observed--the perfect setup, all observer's paradox worries averted! She grinned when Catra skillfully redirected Lord Hordak from looking for Entrapta to other unsuspecting minions. Entrapta made sure her own vent-sized robots made quick work of any wandering cherubs. She couldn't afford to get caught--there were hot fizzy drinks to steal, silly spinning dances to watch, and moons to view which were aesthetically pleasing if no longer interesting as a focus of scientific study.

  
She was happily scribbling observations when a knock sounded on the nearby grate, only for it to lift and a platter to be shoved inside by two sets of clawed hands. It was overflowing with solstice food, and all of it was tiny.

  
It was nonsensical to cry when emotionally touched by actions of kindness. Entrapta let herself anyway.

  
"This is the best social experiment ever!" she said, sniffling loudly into her sleeve.

  
" _Ugh, you're so loud I could feel you snorting that back up. Turn down the volume and blow your nose._ "

  
" _Happy solstice festival, besties!_ "

  
"Happy solstice festival," Entrapta replied, biting into a pastry. Cinnamon had never tasted so good.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it's quantum entanglement.
> 
> I love how Entrapta is coded neuroatypical! And how she’s still a fundamentally pretty okay person with dreams and feelings that can get hurt. And a family portrait in her house of her with parental-looking robots (wtf was that pls explain it show).
> 
> Merry Christmas to the light of my life! I’m sorry I hyperfocused while writing this and forgot to make dinner!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Solstice Our Way](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17502395) by [exmanhater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/pseuds/exmanhater)




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